Mucsi András - Kiss Joakim Margit (szerk.): Beck Judit festőművész gyűjteményes kiállítása. Szentendrei Képtár 1990. szeptember - október. Pápa, Városi Galéria 1990. október - november (Szentendre, 1990)
JUDIT BECK AND SZENTENDRE (Additions to Szentendre Art in the 1930s) The start of Judit Beck’s career is hard to define. We may say she got started at the age of 16 (when she was admitted to the College of Art), or at the age of 21 (when she graduated) or at the age of 5 (at the start of her consciousness). Her personal relations with the writers of the Nyugat: Babits, Zsigmond Móricz, Tersánszky, the short story writer and art critic Artur Elek through their visits to her father’s studio, the company of her actor uncle, Artur Bárdos, her friendship with Aladár Körösfői Kriesch, Olga Szentpál, a coreographer and dancer, the proximity of the outstanding representatives of the Szinyei Society have brought about a comprehensive knowledge of the contemporary state of literature, theJheatre, dance and painting for the beginning artist (and her brother András) owing to the exceptional intellectual background. This atmosphere was a similar ingredient in her development to the studies in the class of István Csók. But her academic studies were not restricted to the corrections of István Csók; her classmates at the college: György Kepes, Sándor Trauner, Emil Krocsák, the pieces of Dezső Korniss, Lajos Vajda and the corrections of Vaszary substituting István Csók have all influenced her as a young artist. Considering her early work there are quick changes of style which refer to an alert mind and quick wit if we take the precedents into account. The most important feature of her early works is decorativity. As to their topicas, they are mostly portraits or can be regarded as such. Her Self-Portrait in Yellow, Girl with Lilac, Lady Smoking a Cigarette and Female Nude and dance compositions are all explicit or latent portraits. The bright shades of red, yellow and orange, her flat patches, the special composition of motifs all contribute to decorativity in which a reestimation of Rippl-Rónai, the Gödöllő Art Group and especially a Japanese impact reaching Europe at the turn of the century can be found. The louder media of her joie de vivre are the half lenght portraits of Drégelypalánk. Loud red, cyclamen, ultramarins, dark green and yellow were inspired by folk art: they appear on the costumes of her figures and construct a compact surface just like in other pictures painted at the time. The range of colours corresponds to the one used by one of her classmates, Emil Krocsák alluding indirectly to Vaszary. (She took part in fieldwork in 1929 in Drégelypalánk together with Emil Krocsák and Erzsébet Vaszkó.) In 1934 - with her husband, György Gombosi - she visited Gyula Derkovits’s studio. It was not the personal contact or the diacussions of art but the pictorial world of Derkovits which defined her works for a long time. Transition from flat decorativity toward the analytical, broken, reflexive paintings was made by the portrait „Janó". The blue and brown tones reflect the colours of Derkovits but in the characterization the exotic features are still dominant since the artist’s view of Man has changed only gradually. On „Vili” the features of the figure with an axe are still important but they are integrated into the picture as a whole: its red reflections in greenish ochre have a rich picturesque effect and on the left the trouvaille of the winding smoke in the foreground alludes to a more direct influence of Derkovits. Most of her works exhibitied at the Tamás Gallery were painted in Szentendre which she visited first on 1936: the monochromous Baby, Lullaby having the same atmosphere and perhaps the piece commemorating the evening of a working class family. The loud tones disappeared as did ail superfluous details and brushstrokes accentuating points of interest. The almost monochromous, deep English red shades testify emotional identification. Reality has broadened for the painter who is interested not only in natural beauties but also in generally human characteristios manifested in the peripheries of human society. She seems to find her own aesthetic expressions in this broadened world as well: that of profound emotional relations which connect mother and child, which is conveyed through intimate, subdued English red shades. The scene is represented from a close viewpoint, the environs are outlined by reduced objects. The intimate interior of dark tones merely suggest the plasticity of figures. The monochromous, homogenous colouring is without depth or diastance: it may come from the dusk of a room at sunset but also from her emotions and moods. The mothers of Mária Modok and the portraits of Margit Gráber are somewhat similar. Perhaps the most compact representatios of Szentendre art are the landscapes and socio-portraits which depict the environment and local people which reflect her own opinions. This topic conveys her 25
